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    Assessing Student Learning

    • Online & Hybrid Teaching
    • Teaching Strategies
    • Assessment

    Last modified: October 3, 2022

    Assessment is one of the most important parts of instruction.

    Assessment vs. Grading

    Assessments are tools instructors use to gauge student learning and understanding. Not all assessments need to be graded. They can be used to guide instruction needs, as self-checks for students, and as feedback tools.

    If you are grading an assessment, make sure that your grade reflects student achievement of the outcomes:

    • Consider what you score & the weight of those scores
    • As yourself: can a student fail an assessment for reasons unrelated to outcomes (like improperly formatted citations)?
    • Make sure to let students know how they are doing through timely grading and feedback

    Types of Assessments

    Purpose: Students demonstrate current knowledge / skills

    Examples:

    • Writing Sample
    • Pre-test
    • Placement Test
    • Student Interest Survey

    Purpose: Check for understanding and give feedback

    Examples:

    • CATs (Classroom Assessment Techniques)
    • Low-stakes quizzes:
      • In both Blackboard and Google Forms, you can set up automatic grading and feedback responses
    • Peer-review
    • Oral or written feedback
    • Discussion

    Purpose: Students demonstrate what they have learned

    Examples:

    • Project
    • Exam
    • Research paper
    • Post-test
    • Presentation
    • See Creative Assessments below

    Creative Assessments

    A summative assessment does not always have to be a paper or presentation. Here are a few creative ideas for other types of final products:

    • Real-world artifact: Children’s book, Comic / graphic novel, Physical object, etc.
    • Curated collection: Playlist, Compliation of artworks, poems, etc.
    • Webpage
    • Video  
    • VoiceThread
    • Portfolio
    • Podcast
    • Performance: Dance, Music, Drama

    Alternatives to Proctored Exams

    Proctored exams are required for certain disciplines, but if you are looking for a way to assess students without proctoring, consider these ideas:

    Ask students to create something (see creative assessments above):

    • Paper/report, poster, presentation, real-world artifact, curated collection
    • Webpage, video, VoiceThread, portfolio

    Have students develop exam questions and answers:

    • Open-ended / essay, short answer, mixture of many question types
    • Ask students to explain their choices for multiple choice questions

    Set up your exam to minimize cheating:

    • Set a time limit
    • Set a password (for Blackboard exams)
    • Prevent back-tracking (for Blackboard exams)
    • Randomize question & answer choices
    • Make the exam open-book
    • Use a test bank

    Assessing in Blackboard

    Blackboard offers multiple methods for assessing students. Check out these additional pages in the CELT Knowledge Base for more information:
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